Forensic document examiner tells coroner’s court that DNA analysis is unrelated to determining authorship of handwriting.
KOTA KINABALU: The Coroner’s Court here today was told that the presence of Zara Qairina Mahathir’s blood on a document does not prove that the handwriting on it belonged to her.
Forensic document examiner and certified handwriting expert Dr Linthini Gannetion said DNA analysis is not related to determining authorship in handwriting examination.
“The DNA analysis has nothing to do with authorship determination. Even if the blood is hers, it does not mean the handwriting is hers,” she said.
She said this under questioning by counsel Joan Goh, representing one of the students accused of bullying Zara Qairina, during inquest proceedings before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan.
The issue arose when Goh suggested that document Y8A was written by Zara Qairina based on the presence of her blood on it.
The 74th witness, who holds a PhD in forensic document examination from Universiti Sains Malaysia, said no conclusion could be made on authorship of document Y8A due to the absence of contemporaneous handwriting samples.
She added that a peculiar formation of the lowercase letter “t” in the document raised the possibility of disguise or that it may have been written by another person.
“I cannot rule out elements of disguise. I also cannot rule out that someone else wrote the page, as I do not have sufficient comparative evidence from the relevant period,” she said.
Linthini said handwriting examination requires assessment of both similarities and differences before a conclusion can be reached, and a “no conclusion” finding is appropriate when there are significant limiting factors, including lack of comparable samples.
During today’s proceedings, several pages were displayed on screen during questioning, including writings said to reflect Zara Qairina’s personal feelings, including matters relating to her relationship with her mother.
Yesterday, Linthini testified that documents Y1 to Y15 were confirmed as pages torn from the “Love and Peace” diary, believed to belong to Zara Qairina.
Zara Qairina died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 17, 2025, a day after she was found unconscious in a drain near her school dormitory at about 4 am.
The Attorney General’s Chambers later ordered the exhumation of her remains for a post-mortem on Aug 8, before announcing a formal inquest into her death on Aug 13.
The inquest continues tomorrow with the same witness.
